return

On a mountain, at dusk, deep fog thinning. As it clears, across from me, a taller peak, near-full moon coming up behind. A flash to the side of me: there, a falls of water, at my level, shining — and, from above, the River of Stars dropping into it out of the dark.

Moon pulls clear: I know that mountain. On its top, a tower, falling down — I climbed that tower, often. I remember more: a path goes over the far side, down to the lake. The House at one end.

Start tomorrow.

Cannot sleep. Every move to set up camp, a sharp image: his hands, his voice, teaching me how. And then, as my fire starts to catch:

I am looking from a hiding place; he feeds twigs one by one into young flames, then small sticks, making a pyramid. It begins to glow: he stops moving, gazes into it. His attention shifts; I draw back. He turns his head slowly... looks right at me. A moment passes. Then he lifts his hand, beckons.

Now my fire is going, and I gaze. A different scene: glare of sun on deep snow. We've set out for wood, across the lake, iced solid. He plunges, knee-deep in the powder, pulling me on a sledge, his bag of tools on my lap. We head for the far end, where birch and young pine crowd the margin.

I'm laughing, he leaps and charges, clowning for me. Then, beyond him, a cloud of steam. I point, shout. He just capers more madly.

Then he sinks past his waist, the sledge rams his chest. I pitch over him into soggy slush. I scrabble to get behind him, I'm screaming, I pull and pull on his collar, but I cannot move him. He rouses and flails, yells at me to back away, we'll both go down.

I fetch a long handle, he gets the other end, inches up onto solid ice, slithers away from the hole. Staggers to his knees, grabs my shoulder, pushes up to his feet.

No wood that day, so no fire when we get back to the House. He wraps us together in everything we can find; I fall asleep against his chest. But I'm too small to warm him. His legs never work again.

I scavenge what little wood I can; he becomes very ill. Day after day after day. The misery is appalling.

Suddenly it is spring. The birds get up their racket, squirrels chase through the woods. Briars turn green, make flowers then berries, and we feed ourselves again.

I learn to work the traps, fish in the lake, to use the sling, and knock down a slow bird then kill a young coney. He rigs the sledge with wheels, to get around the house; I clear a path to the sunporch.

He teaches me to plant; in early summer we lay a table beside the lake. For a while it is very good with us — for all we know, the last ones left on earth.

Those words come from him. Young as I am then, I know what it means for us to be that. Different now, of course.

Evening, after supper, sun going down. He talks about before he found me in the woods. His friends, his family, others, all elsewhere, unreachable. We sit long after dark in the ruin; even I can tell it was once the palace of a king, or a race of them.

I see his face, lit from the side, eyes fixed in that other world; the music of his voice, as he summons the ones he knew into this unpeopled place, where everything he loved was taken away from him.

Nothing left but a foundling to watch him die.